Hermetically sealed containers, such as trays with a flexible lid sealed around their edges, are widely used in the packaging of food products. This type of packaging offers several advantages: the rigidity of the container provides protection to the contents of the package during transportation, storage and handling, and the hermeticity of the seals contributes to the increase in the shelf-life of the product.
Reclosable packages are convenient for a variety of reasons. For example when the packaged product is not immediately consumed after opening of the package, it could undergo contamination and spoilage. To avoid this inconvenience consumers are often forced to time-consuming repackaging operations.
WO 2005/039997 discloses a reclosable rigid container assembly which comprises a support and a frame in which the support comprises a peripheral flange outwardly extending from the support. The frame comprises a rim and is shaped at its edge to co-operate with the flange to be realisably secured onto the support wherein the container assembly is in the closed state. The rim of the frame extends over a fraction of the flange thus leaving a central area of the support and the remaining part of the flange not covered by the rim of the frame. In one embodiment the frame is separate from the support and in another embodiment the frame is attached to the support by a hinge. A flexible cover is sealed to the frame and the peripheral flange and can be removed from the flange by removing the frame from the support. A difficulty with the container assembly of WO 2005/039997 is that either the container assembly is made of a single material in a one-step operation (which is undesirable because this does not enable the frame to be significantly less stiff than the support, thereby making opening of the container assembly problematic) or it requires the support and frame to be made separately and connected together in a further step (this being difficult to arrange and time consuming).
FR 2,618,411 describes a package composed of a rigid single-piece container having a ring moulded around its flange and a film sealed onto both the ring and the flange of the container. To open the package the ring is broken away from the flange of the container and the film peeled away from the flange. However, once reclosed, the package of this invention does not offer the required degree of reliability as there is no engagement between the frame and the flange of the container. A further difficulty with the container assembly of FR 2,618,411 is that the container assembly is made of a single material, thereby making it difficult to achieve the required degree of stiffness of the container whilst achieving the required degree of flexibility of the frame to allow peeling off of the film which seals the container assembly.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method of manufacturing a container assembly comprising a support and frame. Another objective is to provide a container assembly, preferably one which can be manufactured in a one-step manufacturing method.